What Mindful Drinking Actually Looks Like (According To A Winery Doing It Right)

I went to Oxford Landing on a work trip expecting the usual things you expect from a winery visit: vineyards stretching into the distance, talk of terroir, a lot of swirling, sniffing and polite nodding while pretending you can actually identify the difference between your stone fruit and citrus blossom. What I didn’t expect was to leave thinking about how I actually drink, and more importantly, who I drink with.

Oxford Landing sits on the banks of the Murray River in South Australia’s Riverland, a region that produces around 30% of Australia’s wine yet is rarely spoken about in the same breath as “boutique” or “luxury.” It’s big, it’s agricultural, it’s practical. It’s also, historically, a region shaped by temperance, which feels almost poetic when you consider just how much wine flows through it now, and maybe that’s exactly why it feels different.

Rather than feeling like a lesson in wine credentials or sustainability stats, the trip slowly turned into something more personal. Oxford Landing didn’t just show me what they do; it showed me how wine can exist in a way that feels aligned with the lives many of us are trying to build now.

One of the clearest things Oxford Landing reframed for me is that mindful drinking isn’t about cutting wine out, it’s about whether it fits into your life. The wine industry has long sold indulgence as the end goal: heavier bottles, higher alcohol percentages, bigger statements. But standing there, learning about why Oxford Landing has moved to lighter glass (because there’s no real reason for wine bottles to be heavy other than theatre), or why they were early adopters of screw caps (not to cheapen wine, but to make it better), it became clear that restraint can be a form of care. We’re obviously not pretending wine is suddenly a green juice. It's still talk about romance and culture, about Shiraz as a warm hug. But it definitely begs one to ask a different question: does this wine belong in someone’s real life, or does it completely take over? That question landed harder than I expected.

For a long time, I’ve noticed my own relationship with alcohol shifting. There's been less of an interest in heavy pours or the nights that blur away. And more of an awareness of how drinking actually makes me feel during and after. Being at Oxford Landing gave language to something I’d already been dancing around, mindful drinking for me isn’t about abstinence, but it’s definitely about intention.

Oxford Landing is Australia’s first Gold Member of the International Wineries for Climate Action. They recycle 100% of their wastewater. They invest in renewable energy, trial regenerative viticulture, and have planted more than 200,000 native trees and shrubs along the Murray River. All of that matters, but that wasn’t where I felt the impact.

What stayed with me were the very human details, such as University of Adelaide students doing placements, locals opening spare rooms to visiting workers. Events designed to bring everyone together, whether they’re here for a summer or a lifetime, thus building a workforce that isn’t treated as disposable or interchangeable, but as part of the ecosystem itself. It made me realise that sustainability, when it’s done properly, doesn’t feel like a checklist.

Wellness conversations often focus so heavily on the individual "my habits, my optimisation, my routines," that we forget how much our wellbeing is shaped by community. At Oxford Landing, sustainability isn’t just about protecting the environment for future generations. It’s about creating conditions where people can actually thrive now.And that, in turn, changes how wine is consumed. When the people behind the bottle are cared for, the wine feels less like a product and more like part of a shared system.

After COVID, I made a rule for myself: I wouldn’t drink alone at home anymore. Wine was something I associated with people, with dinners and silly little laughter over phrases like "should we get a bottle," and I wanted to keep it that way. If I wanted a glass, I’d wait until I was with friends or make a plan around it. For a long time, I stuck to that rule, and honestly, it felt good. However, over the last year, I’ve wavered, shit happens, hurt creeps in and sometimes a glass sneaks in alongside Netflix or late-night emails. But going into 2026, that intention feels important again.

I want wine to be about coming together, not numbing my life out. I want to bring it back to flavour and connection and community, not just a force of habit after a long day. Being at Oxford Landing reinforced that in a very unpreachy way, because nothing here is designed for solo self-optimisation.

And at the end of the day, that's what I keep coming back to: drinking was never meant to be a solitary activity. It’s meant to be shared. Poured knowingly into too many glasses, passed around a table, attached to stories that you’ll gigglingly retell later. It’s meant to sit alongside dinner, or sunlight, or a long catch-up that turns into a weekly routine, not because of the buzz, but because you just want to be together. It's about the way a good drink can make a room feel warmer when the people who are in it, are the point. That’s the version of wine I want more of in 2026: social, intentional, and in service of being with your village — not in place of them.